


The Handkerchiefs

by angelsfalling16



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Crafts, Fluff, Love, M/M, Simon Snow gets crafty, SnowBaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 09:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21097490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsfalling16/pseuds/angelsfalling16
Summary: Unbeknownst to Baz, Simon has been stealing and collecting his handkerchiefs since first year. After keeping them hidden away for so long, Simon decides to display them in creative ways.





	The Handkerchiefs

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this tumblr post](https://carryonsnowbaz.tumblr.com/post/186381308784/quick-question-do-we-think-that-simon-also-kept)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading over this for me @wo2ash!

**Simon**

I’ve got a box of handkerchiefs in front of me, and I’m pulling them out to look at them because the weight of them in my hand and the memories of how I got each one of them brightens my mood. In the corner of each one is four initials and the Pitch coat of arms.

I run my thumb over the flames, the moon, and the three falcons. It makes me wonder about my birth family, and if they really were Mages, what kind of symbols would represent their family lines.

There’s a knock on my bedroom door, and I have to hurry to stuff the handkerchiefs back into the box. The doorknob starts to turn before I say anything, and I know that it’s Baz, so I start putting them away faster.

I just barely manage to shove the lid on the box before he walks in, but before I manage to push it behind me, I know that he has already seen it.

“Penny told me that I could come in, but if you’re busy,” Baz pauses, eyeing the box suspiciously, “I can come back later.”

“It’s nothing,” Simon says quickly, guiltily.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Then, can I see what is inside the box?” Baz asks, walking across the room towards me and the box.

“No,” I say firmly.

“Why not?” Baz asks, leaning down over me and not so stealthily reaching around me, trying to grab the box.

I surge forward and kiss him fiercely, tugging at his bottom lip with my teeth.

Baz groans, and I take the opportunity to slip my tongue inside his mouth.

While he’s distracted, I slide the box off the bed, hoping that it doesn’t fall open and dump the contents all over the floor, before pulling Baz down on top of me

“This isn’t going to make me forget about the box, you know,” Baz says breathily, as I tangle a hand in his hair and start to trail kisses along his jaw and down his neck.

“We’ll see about that,” I murmur as I bite down on the skin that connects Baz’s neck and shoulder.

“Fuck,” Baz huffs, tilting his head, giving me better access to his neck.

“Mmm,” I hum, smirking just a little.

I know exactly how to solve things with Baz, and quite of few of those ways include using my mouth.

As we lie next to each other on my bed a while later, arms wrapped around each other as we work to get our breathing back to normal, I comb my fingers through Baz’s hair, knowing that I won this time. I’ll just have to make sure that I do a better job of keeping the box hidden.

After he’s gone for the night and I’ve shoved the box back under my bed, something starts to niggle at me. I start to feel like maybe these shouldn’t just be kept hidden away.

The only reason I kept them hidden for so long was because they were stolen from Baz, and we only just recently started getting along. I used to tell myself that I was taking them to bother him, but he never seemed to notice they were gone, and now that I’ve realized how I feel about him, I’m thinking that maybe I had a different reason for keeping them.

The next day, I take all of them out again and decide that I should make something with them. There are more here than I care to admit, so there’s a lot that I could do with them. I didn’t even realize that I had taken so many, but I’m wondering where he even got all of these and how he never realized that so many had disappeared.

Setting aside the first one I ever kept - the one he dropped on my bed in first year - I grab my phone and start looking up some crafting ideas. Baz has classes all day. I don’t, which means that I can get something started without worrying that he’ll walk in and see them.

I don’t actually do much work on that first day – I just look up ideas and figure out what I’m going to do – but over the next couple weeks, I start working on the crafts.

The first project I take on is making a quilt out of twelve of the handkerchiefs, which involves a lot of sewing. Of course, I’ve never sewn anything before, so already, this is difficult. I’m determined to do it, though.

I could probably ask Penny to teach me how to sew. She knows the basics at least, but I can’t risk her figuring out what I’m doing. I don’t want anyone to know until I’m done.

This means that I have to try to learn how to sew on the internet with what little free time I have between classes and therapy and hanging out with Baz and the job I managed to get on campus.

The sewing is slow-going, and there are numerous times when I mess up and have to undo some of the stitching, but it’s also a nice stress relief. Or, it would be if I didn’t feel like Baz was getting suspicious.

He knows that I’m hiding something, and he’s hurt that I won’t tell him what it is.

There’s more than once when I have to hurry to put it all away before he gets to mine and Penny’s flat, and one day, when he surprises me with a visit, I have very little time to put it away and end up stabbing myself with needle (not for the first time that day) in my haste, cursing silently.

I barely get the box shut before he walks in, and a strange expression crosses over his face as I move it to the floor. He doesn’t try to reach for it this time, but he does ask about it, just like he has several times over the past week.

“It’s nothing,” I tell him once again.

“Then, why won’t you tell me about it?”

I shrug. “I just want to keep it a secret for a bit longer.”

He looks upset, and I worry for a moment that he’s going to walk out and never talk to me again, but then he just takes a breath and nods.

“Alright. I won’t push you anymore. I’m just curious.”

“I’ll show you soon,” I promise.

I’m not lying to him. I finish with the quilt the next day, and then I begin working on some smaller projects.

Those are a lot easier and take a lot less time to complete.

It’s about a week after the last time that Baz asks about the box that I finally decide to share everything with him. I consider just handing him to box and letting him look through it all, but I feel like it would be better to showcase them throughout the room.

The quilt is my favorite piece. It’s not the full size of my bed; it’s just large enough to lie across the top. It’s comfortable, though, and when I wrap it around me, it’s almost like having Baz holding me as the scent of cedar and bergamot envelop me.

Sewing the quilt was a little harder than I thought it would be. Sewing the handkerchiefs into rows turned out to be the easy part, and once I got the hang of the sewing, it really wasn’t that bad. It was making it into an actual quilt that made it more challenging. I had to get more materials, and that was when I finally had to tell Penny about what I was doing.

I needed someone to go to the store with me and figure out what to buy, and then she proved helpful in figuring out how to sew the backing and batting together and fitting it to the handkerchiefs. I was pleased with the way that it turned out

She teased me about it, but she also said it was nice. I swore her to secrecy about it, but she thought that I should tell Baz because it was a sweet and romantic thing that I was doing and he would probably love it.

I know that she’s right. I’m sure he’ll like it, but he doesn’t know I have all of these, and I didn’t want him to see any of it until I’m done.

After I finished the quilt, I made a pincushion out of one of the handkerchiefs, but I couldn’t bring myself to use it because it would feel awful to just keep stabbing holes into, so it now sits on my bedside table, looking more like a decorative pillow.

The wristlet I made was kind of a joke, and it hangs from my doorknob. I don’t plan on actually wearing it, but Penny thought it was hilarious when she saw it.

Also on my door, there is a wreath made of handkerchiefs. The corners with Baz’s initials are on the outside edges of the wreath. This was actually one of the easier crafts because there was no sewing involved and less mistakes made. I made it with alternating silver-grey and blue handkerchiefs. It reminds me a bit of winter decorations, but it looks nice.

The handkerchief bunnies were also really simple to make, and I ended up making several of them. One I gave to Penny. (She thought it was weird since it has Baz’s initials on it, but she placed it out in the living room.) The other two are blue and red and they rest atop my dresser together.

The finishing touch is the first handkerchief that I set aside when I began all of this. It has now been ironed and placed in an ornate frame that hangs above my bed. It’s a dark blue color with silver stitching, and it matches the wreath.

My room feels almost like an homage to Baz but in a very subtle way. To me, it’s a way of expressing my love for him. I haven’t told him how I feel yet, but I feel like this is a way for me to do that without actually saying it.

When I finally invite him over to see it all, I nervously wait for him to take it all in, worried that he’ll think that I’ve gone mad for doing all of this.

But then he grins at me, like full-on grins at me, his eyes lighting up, and he crosses over to me. His hands land on my hips, and he slowly backs me against the wall. Our eyes meet for a long moment before he kisses me.

He kisses me just as slowly as he pushed me against the wall, and I love it.

“So, you like it?” I ask when we finally part.

“Of course, I do. I love it, Simon.”

I grin back at him and kiss him again.

After that, he starts “accidentally” leaving his handkerchiefs around my room and various places around the flat (much to the annoyance of Penny). I continue to make more crafts, and I realize that crafting is something that I really kind of like. It’s a nice way to focus on something but also zone out at the same time.

The new handkerchiefs don’t all have his initials on them. Each one has a different design, and a lot of them have floral patterns, just like the shirts he likes to wear. I love that he’s giving them to me now, and I don’t have to feel like I’m stealing them anymore.

I don’t know if he’s going out and buying the new ones or if he has a secret collection that I don’t know about, but one day he brings home one that is covered in dragons, and it makes me laugh. I haven’t figured out what to do with that one yet, but I know it’s going to be something special.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! <3


End file.
